How it works in New Jersey

The steps

1. Get fingerprinted

   Schedule a fingerprint appointment for a New Jersey fingerprint-based criminal history record check. The New Jersey State Police use the electronic live scan that IDEMIA, a private company under contract with the State of New Jersey, provides at approved IdentoGO sites: schedule online at uenroll.identogo.com, or call IDEMIA at (877) 503-5981 if you have no web access. The fee is collected at the IDEMIA fingerprint site on the day of your appointment. The petition itself needs your case details, not a fingerprint record; the check shows you your New Jersey record (records from New Jersey only) before you list your cases. If you live outside New Jersey, the State Police's instructions (linked in the fee below) give the out-of-state path: an IdentoGO site in New Jersey or a participating one out of state (IdentoGO adds a convenience fee out of state), or, in some cases, a fingerprint card mailed through IdentoGO's Card Scan service.

   Fingerprint fee: $44.13 — The fee for the fingerprint-based record check, which includes the $14.13 vendor fee; collected at the IdentoGO fingerprint site on the day of the appointment (IDEMIA's live scan, under contract to the New Jersey State Police).

2. Request your record

   Get your Personal Record Request letter from the New Jersey State Police Personal Records Request portal. Allow two business days from the date you were fingerprinted. The letter is available from the portal only if no record is found, and you can download it for ninety days from the date you were fingerprinted. If a record is found, the State Police mail the information instead; allow up to fourteen business days from the date you were fingerprinted.

   Cost: $0.00 — The portal names no fee of its own: the $44.13 paid at the IdentoGO appointment is the fee for the fingerprint-based record check, and the Personal Record Request letter downloads from the portal two business days after you were fingerprinted, if no record was found (a record found is mailed within fourteen business days).

3. Review your record

   Confirm there is no disqualifying information in your history. If there is something incorrect, follow the process to challenge the issue. If everything is accurate, make a copy for your file and keep the original somewhere safe.

4. Gather your case details

   Gather what the petition must state and the statements that go with it. Under N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-7, the petition is verified and includes your date of birth; your date of arrest; the statute or statutes and offense or offenses for which you were arrested and of which you were convicted; the original indictment, summons or complaint number; your date of conviction, or the date of disposition if no conviction resulted; and the court's disposition of the matter and the punishment imposed, if any. Under N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-8, four statements are attached, the first three with an affidavit or verification: that no charge for a crime, a disorderly persons offense or a petty disorderly persons offense is pending against you; if you seek to expunge a conviction for a crime, that no court in this State or another state, and no federal court, has ever granted you an expungement, sealing or similar relief for a conviction; if a charge was dismissed because you were accepted into supervisory treatment or another diversion program, the nature of the original charge, the court of disposition and the date of disposition; and whether you have legally changed your name, with the date of the judgment and your previous legal name — a copy of the name-change order goes with it. The Judiciary's online system compiles a listing of all possibly relevant Judiciary records for your petition and sends it to the parties it serves (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-10.1). You need your case number to start: for a Superior Court case, you can look it up on the courts' website; for a municipal court case, contact the municipality to get your summons number; for a juvenile case, contact the court for how to get your docket number. Certified copies of your court records are optional; if you want one, the Superior Court Clerk's Office charges the certified-copy fee shown here.

   Certified copy fee: $15.00

5. Verify the final documents

   Check each item against your record and the court's file: the names, the addresses, the dates, and every charge and request listed. Make copies of every original.

6. Prepare your petition

   Complete the petition for the kind of case and outcome you have. Every wait runs from the latest of four dates: your most recent conviction, payment of any court-ordered fine, fee, penalty or restitution, the end of probation or parole, or your release from custody. Under N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-2 a crime waits five years — one crime (with up to three disorderly persons or petty disorderly persons offenses), the crimes in one judgment of conviction, or crimes closely related in a short sequence of events — and a court can grant it after four years for compelling circumstances if you have no new conviction. Under N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-3, disorderly persons and petty disorderly persons offenses — up to five, with no conviction for a crime — wait five years, or three for compelling circumstances. A municipal ordinance violation waits two years (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-4). A clean-slate petition for all of your convictions waits ten years (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-5.3) and is barred if any conviction is a crime N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-2 never expunges. An arrest that ended in dismissal, acquittal or discharge has no wait (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-6) — the court orders that expungement when the case ends, or you petition later — except six months after a dismissal through a diversion program. Shorter clocks apply to young drug offenders (section 2C:52-5), certain marijuana cases (section 2C:52-5.1) and victims of domestic violence (section 2C:52-5.5).

7. Finalize your petition

   Take the completed petition from Step 6, the documents collected in Step 4, and the background check from Step 2, and put them together in a complete package. Double-check every file in the package is the original and ensure you have a copy of the complete package for your personal file.

8. File your expungement petition

   File the petition for expungement in the Superior Court — in the county where you live, or a county where one of your matters was disposed of (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-7) — through the Judiciary's eCourts Expungement System, which files it and serves it for you (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-10.1). The petition is verified under oath, and the statements from step 4 go with it. There is no fee (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-29).

   Cost: $0.00 — New Jersey charges no fee for applying for an expungement (N.J.S.A. 2C:52-29, as amended by the 2019 clean-slate act); the Judiciary's eCourts Expungement System: "It's free."

9. Work with the court

   When you file, the court sets a hearing date 35 to 60 days out (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-9), and the system serves the petition on the Superintendent of State Police, the Attorney General, the county prosecutor where the court sits and the prosecutor of any county where you were convicted (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-10). They have 60 days to check it against your record and tell the court of any error or bar (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-10.1); the county prosecutor must verify what the petition says (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-24). If no one objects and no bar appears, the court can grant the order without a hearing (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-11); otherwise, attend the hearing and answer what the court asks. A petition is not heard while any charge for a crime or a disorderly persons offense is pending against you (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-13).

10. Receive the court's order

    The court grants the order, or denies it on the grounds the law lists (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-14): a requirement of the chapter not met; an objector's showing that the records are still needed; a plea-bargain dismissal, for an arrest petition; civil litigation over the arrest or conviction; or an earlier expungement, with the exceptions the section names. It gives you proof of the expungement and sends the order to every agency that holds the records (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-15). Keep your copy, and a certified copy from the Superior Court Clerk's Office if you want one (the fee in step 4).

11. Verify the record is cleared

    Under N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-15, every law enforcement and criminal justice agency that holds a record named in the order — the court's clerk included — removes it from its files and places it with a custodian who may not release it; asked about the matter, every agency answers that there is no record. The New Jersey State Police's Expungement Status Portal shows, free of charge, when the State Police have processed your order (N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-15.1); the State Police line for the portal is (609) 671-7900. Once expunged, the arrest, the conviction and the proceedings are deemed not to have occurred, and you may answer questions accordingly, except where N.J. Rev. Stat. § 2C:52-27 requires disclosure: in a later expungement petition; to a court weighing you for a diversion program on new charges, if the expunged charges were dismissed through one; and when you seek a job within the judicial branch or with a law enforcement or corrections agency. If a background-check report still shows the matter, your copy of the order is the record to show; knowingly revealing an expunged matter is itself an offense under section 2C:52-30.

If you have to mail anything, remember to keep a copy of whatever you send and to use a method with a tracking number like the USPS Flat Rate Envelope.